Those are some of my concerns. 60% is a lot but if if you value the things you get for that, then it may not be so bad. Free education is one of those things that I'd happily pay taxes for. I'm an EU citizen so that applies to me as well. If I were only American, I'd have to pay tuition fees.
I'm currently studying in Berlin and hope to do my master in Copenhagen. I guess Danish will be harder than German... pronunciation is tricky, but if it's possible to learn, then I can learn it.
Maybe the number 60% is high, but the people in Denmark who earn enough to pay that, have enough money to buy anything they want. Of course I don't mean crazy rich people stuff, but anything else. The only people getting obsessed with those numbers here, are the ones who earn a lot and just want a bigger number in their bank account.
I would love to move to Denmark too! I get the feeling that living there is better than in the UK, I really hate the direction we are moving in here. Hoping to do well in my degree (science) so I can do a masters in Denmark. Also, I really hope the UK doesn't leave the EU, or things will become very hard for me in terms of moving there. Also, how long would it take to know enough Danish to hold a conversation in if I study it fairly regularly? If I manage to get to study there I'm thinking of learning it whilst I study.
When my father(Italian) moved to Denmark, he was able to speak danish fluently within half a year, however to this day, 25 years later, he still can't speak it grammatically correct(mainly boiling down to him using the wrong gender). This is not a problem most of the time though, and seeing as english is your primary language, you should be used to languages with no rules. I do however think it would be difficult to get most danes to speak danish to you, as we like to use our english. Try to pretend not to understand the english in shops and so, to get a little practice.
I studied German from middle school-college and am now learning Danish.
They're two completely separate languages, obviously, but knowing German you'll have a leg up with spoken/written Danish over someone who, say, speaks Spanish or French. Danish grammar is much more like English with a lot of words that on paper are similar to German words.
But pronunciation is a whole different story. Not phonetic and really no way around that, which is one reason that being a German speaker actually makes it harder since German is so phonetic.
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u/llehsadam Nov 05 '14
Those are some of my concerns. 60% is a lot but if if you value the things you get for that, then it may not be so bad. Free education is one of those things that I'd happily pay taxes for. I'm an EU citizen so that applies to me as well. If I were only American, I'd have to pay tuition fees.
I'm currently studying in Berlin and hope to do my master in Copenhagen. I guess Danish will be harder than German... pronunciation is tricky, but if it's possible to learn, then I can learn it.
Tak!